
Design linked digital notebooks entirely in the Canva app for free, with planner, workbook, and blank pages; test in Goodnotes on iPad or sell on Etsy.
Design a vertical iPad notebook cover in Canva at 1536 by 1960 pixels, featuring a rounded lime cover, a white title label, and green writing lines for the Goodnotes thumbnail.
Design section headers for GoodNotes notebooks in Canva by duplicating and naming pages, creating three notebooks with color-differentiated sections, twelve monthly tabs, a yearly planner, and a reading tracker.
Design and link rounded rectangle tabs in Canva for Goodnotes, color-match to covers, connect tabs to notebook sections, and set up 12 monthly tabs with a PDF test.
Create notebook pages with narrow lines, wide lines, and dot grids; duplicate them across notebook one, two, and three, and adjust background colors to match tabs in GoodNotes.
Design calendar pages for monthly planners in Canva by creating a January calendar, duplicating it for all months, and building an evenly spaced grid with bordered boxes and day labels.
Design a flexible daily planner to drop into every month, starting with January, duplicating it for all 12 months, and pairing with a yearly planner.
Create a yearly planner in Canva for Goodnotes, with a four-quarter layout, Q1–Q4 labels, and sections for records, administration, mental health tracking, and a reading tracker.
Design two reading tracker pages for a Canva-created Goodnotes notebook. Create a books-to-read list with a date finished and a book review page with a book cover area, basic information, a review space, and star ratings.
learn to design a horizontal notepad in Canva as a two-page spread with binder rings, tabs on top or bottom, and optional vertical layouts with middle binding.
Export Canva designs as a pdf and import them into Goodnotes on iPad to create notebooks with calendars, planners, and journals.
Applications such as Goodnotes and Notability offer a sophisticated platform for organizing your thoughts and ideas in virtual notebooks. In this course, I will instruct you on how to craft interactive, linked virtual notebooks and planners utilizing Canva.
Previously, designing these elements was a challenging task, requiring a variety of design tools to integrate linked components. Fortunately, with the advent of Canva, all that is required is a free account on this platform.
Our project will involve the creation of a prototype notebook, encompassing three notebook tabs, twelve monthly tabs, a comprehensive yearly planner, and a reading tracker. Through these various sections, you will acquire design skills that are transferable to any digital notebook you may wish to create in the future.
These digital notebooks can be made for personal use, or alternatively, as digital products for sale on platforms such as Etsy.
This course is structured in a detailed, step-by-step manner, guiding you through each process in Canva. Prior familiarity with Canva is helpful, reducing the learning curve, as the project has many steps. Nevertheless, the instructions are clear and detailed, allowing anyone with patience and an interest in graphic design to participate. While this project is ideally completed on Canva for desktop, to utilize keyboard shortcuts I will demonstrate, it is still possible using the mobile or iPad version.
Are you ready to create innovative digital journals? Let's get started!